The Cloud Maker (2010) (22 page)
There was a scraping sound, the quiet shuffle of something soft brushing across rock. Luca steadied his breathing, wondering if it could be one of the others moving in their sleep, but the noise was definitely coming from farther back in the cave.
More silence. Then a long, deep inhalation.
The sound was suspicious, purposeful; a sense probing an unfamiliar aroma as it filtered across the still, dark cave. Luca froze, his mind fogged from sleep as he tried to understand what was happening. Then, suddenly, he felt a grip on his arm, making his whole body go rigid with fear. He saw the dark outline of a figure bending over him, then felt the soft brush of long hair against his cheek.
‘It’s a bear.’
He heard Shara’s voice, so soft it was almost inaudible. She was very close, her lips almost touching his ear as she breathed the words to him. He could smell the aroma of her skin and feel her cheek pressing against his.
‘Get out of here,’ she whispered.
As Luca moved forward, there was a faint rustle from his sleeping bag and he felt Shara’s hand squeeze his arm harder. She moved away silently as he woke Bill, who was sleeping just beside him.
On their hands and knees and blinded by darkness, Bill and Luca silently pulled themselves out of their sleeping bags. They had been sleeping with most of their clothes on already, but needed their boots and jackets if they were to make it in the storm outside. As they fumbled across the hard rock, every soft scrape of their boots or rustle of clothing seemed to betray their presence, the noises echoing across the dead silence of the cave. Luca’s leg brushed over the nylon of his sleeping bag, prompting another long, inquisitive sniff from the back of the cave.
As he crawled forward, Luca realised that Shara was now waiting by the entrance. He came up next to her, seeing her face in the murky light filtering through from the storm outside. She was already fully dressed and ready to leave, her sheepskin jacket buttoned up and her rucksack at her feet. How had she managed to get ready so fast?
Then came a deep growling. At first it was a soft sound, almost gentle, a guttural note that rolled around the rock walls. Within seconds, however, it had gathered in strength, only moments away from becoming a roar.
Luca pushed aside the rucksack blocking the entrance, sending a soft swirl of white noise into the cave as the space was unplugged. Then, grabbing Shara by the shoulder of her jacket, he pulled her forward. Without looking back, she slid out under the overhang. Luca could feel Bill’s presence right behind him and pulled him forward to follow her out. As he did so, he adjusted his balance, moving his right foot just a few centimetres to the left and his boot connected with the saucepan resting on the stove. For a split second there was silence, then came a sickening crash as the metal clattered down on to the rocky floor.
The growling exploded into a roar.
Luca felt a rush of air from behind and instinctively threw himself headlong into the opening. Misjudging the distance, he smacked his head on the roof of the overhang, but somehow the main bulk of his body got through. Clutching his forehead, he rolled out on to the snow and into the terrifying intensity of the storm outside.
The wind was so loud that it whipped painfully across his body, the loose spindrift almost blinding him. As he got to his feet, staggering away from the cave, Luca’s cheeks burned in the freezing air. He had sprinted twenty or so paces before he suddenly stopped, his heart hammering in his chest. Bill! Bill was still in the cave.
Swivelling round, he tried to see into the darkness and could just make out a silhouette, grey and blurry against the dark rock. It was Bill, trying to force his way out of the opening. His body was only half out, his bare palms scrabbling in the snow as he tried to lever himself forward. As Luca watched, paralysed with shock, a horrible scream escaped Bill’s lips and his body arched upwards. Then, suddenly, he was out, rolling down the bank of snow towards Luca.
It was only then that something in Luca unlocked and he ran forward, grabbing Bill by his shoulder and hoisting him up on to his feet. Together they ploughed through the snow away from the cave, staggering in the deep powder as the wind whipped across their faces.
A hundred yards on, they collapsed on to their knees, lungs burning.
‘You all right?’ Luca shouted.
Bill didn’t answer, his eyes wide. He was breathing in shallow, erratic bursts.
‘You all right?’ Luca shouted again, grabbing Bill by the collar of his jacket and forcing him to look up.
For a moment Bill just stared open-mouthed, as if he didn’t know who Luca was. Then he nodded slowly, his whole body trembling from the surge of adrenaline.
‘It didn’t get me,’ he panted. ‘Just clipped the back of my legs, that’s all.’
His breathing started to slow.
‘I’m OK,’ he panted, his mouth dry. ‘I’m OK.’
Luca’s head slumped forward in relief, resting on Bill’s chest. He slowly shook his head.
‘What the fuck was that?’ he said, his voice ragged from emotion.
Bill didn’t answer, but as Luca stared down at the ground, past Bill’s climbing boots, he noticed a small cloud of black fanning out slowly into the snow. For a moment he stared at it, confused as to what it was.
‘You’re bleeding,’ he shouted finally. ‘Jesus Christ!’
Forcing him into a sitting position, he grabbed the back of Bill’s thighs, running his hands down each leg. They felt warm, and the palm of his hand was sticky with blood. The back of Bill’s Gore-Tex trousers had been shredded by a raking claw marks and there was a long strip of flesh hanging loose from the main stem of one leg.
Bill’s breathing slowed as the adrenaline ebbed from his body. He stared at Luca.
‘How bad is it?’
‘We need to stop the bleeding.’
Looking up through the rushing snow, he caught sight of a dim silhouette coming towards them, battling the wind and snow. A moment later Shara stood over them, her arms wrapped across her body for warmth. She had her canvas bag over one shoulder and Bill’s half-filled rucksack over the other. She stared down at them, the fierce wind tugging at her hair.
‘Bill’s bleeding. Can you help?’ Luca shouted up at her. Shara immediately bent down, pushing the rucksacks to one side and feeling Bill’s legs for damage. After a moment, she looked directly into his eyes.
‘You’re going to be OK,’ she said, battling to be heard above the storm. ‘You just have to try and relax while I bandage this.’
She turned to Luca.
‘Have you still got that torch?’
Luca stared at her blankly. He had left his rucksack back in the cave. Then, his hand shot to the breast pocket of his Gore-Tex jacket – his head torch and lighter were still inside. Fumbling with the zip, he pulled out the torch and flicked the switch with his thumb, before handing it across to Shara.
Then he sat down on the snow behind Bill, shielding him from the worst of the wind.
Shara took a small folding knife from her jacket. Opening the two sides of her heavy sheepskin, she started cutting strips from the bottom of her jumper and tying them around Bill’s legs. Luca had his arms around Bill’s back, hugging him tight and rubbing his shoulders to generate heat. Wind and snow swept round them, covering their outstretched legs. Every few seconds, Shara would stop working and clamp her hands under her armpits to stave off the biting cold.
‘You’re going to be all right, mate,’ Luca whispered into Bill’s ear. His jaw was clenched, his bare hands curled into fists against the pain and the cold.
Now that the adrenaline had passed, the cold seemed to have a terrifying new strength. It was obvious that none of them would last much longer. Neither Bill nor Luca had managed to find their fleece hats or insulated gloves in the cave. Shara was the only one who was fully dressed.
‘We’ve got to go, Shara,’ Luca shouted across the noise of the wind. ‘Otherwise we’re going to freeze to death out here.’
She had finished tying the last of the makeshift bandages. The bleeding had slowed and she leaned over towards Luca, her expression set.
‘The cuts aren’t too deep, the problem is the skin around them. It’s already starting to swell from infection. If that was a bear, the infection is likely to come on fast.’
‘We’ve got to reach the rocks on the other side of the glacier. Get out of this wind,’ he said. ‘We’ll worry about the infection later.’
Shara looked down at Bill’s swelling leg.
‘No. We need to sterilise the wound now, then give him antibiotics.’
Luca shook his head. ‘For Christ’s sake, Shara. We’re in a blizzard in the middle of the Himalayas! And you know we don’t have any antibiotics left.’
She closed her eyes, her expression agonised.
‘Come on, we’re going,’ shouted Luca. He started dragging Bill to his feet. ‘Those rocks are our only hope.’
Shara didn’t answer but stared into the wind, her hair billowing out behind her.
‘Get moving!’ Luca shouted. ‘We’ve got to reach the rocks.’
She shook her head. ‘There’s another place.’
‘What? Up here? What do you mean?’
Shara didn’t answer, but instead began muttering something to herself, shaking her head slowly. As Luca stared at her, waiting for an answer, Bill rocked forward, trying to get to his feet. He grabbed on to Luca’s arm and Luca turned, hoisting him vertical.
‘Can you walk?’
Bill hobbled forward a few paces in the streaming wind and nodded hesitantly. ‘Yeah. I can make it. Shara, what place are you taking about?’
‘For God’s sake, Bill. There is no place,’ Luca shouted, his voice raised in desperation.
Ignoring him, Bill moved closer towards her. ‘You’ve been here before, haven’t you, Shara?’
She nodded. ‘Please, there’s no time to explain. Just follow me.’
Reaching down and opening her bag, she pulled out the object wrapped in cloth that Luca had seen the old monk hand to her. Holding it in one hand, she swung her canvas bag back over her shoulder again and handed Bill’s rucksack to Luca. A moment later she was marching forward, disappearing into the white of the storm.
For a second, Luca and Bill looked at each other. Then Bill grabbed Luca’s arm and began limping in the direction she had gone, his face set with determination.
Chapter 30
Zhu was waiting, one leg crossed elegantly over the other, when the soldiers bundled René back in.
Two of them then moved to either side of the door, guarding it, while the third bolted it shut from the outside. René was left standing by the wall, his large frame slumped as if the strings of a marionette had been cut. His jaw was already beginning to ache and he could feel his lip had split at one corner. There was the taste of blood in his mouth and a bruised imprint on his neck where the soldier’s hand had been.
‘Please, Mr Falkus, take a seat,’ Zhu said slowly, gesticulating to the other side of the cell where the chair remained on its side.
René hesitated. Taking a couple of paces forward, he righted it and gingerly lowered himself down.
‘She’s just a kid . . .’ he began in a hoarse whisper.
Zhu didn’t answer, but instead glanced at the two soldiers by the door and nodded for them to leave. When it had shut behind them, he smiled at René.
‘The gentlemen you’ve just met,’ he began, ‘are from a special division of the army that I have commandeered. For all that, I’m afraid they’re not exactly what we might call “refined”. I myself once had the privilege of being interrogated by them.’
Still smiling, he took his right arm from where it normally remained behind his back and started rolling up the long shirtsleeve.
‘Nothing more than country boys, bored and frustrated,’ he continued. ‘Having said that, they do perform their tasks with a certain . . . creativity.’
René stared at the hand Zhu was now resting on the table. It seemed completely normal, slender and pale like his other one, except for one difference. Where the nails on his left hand were neatly manicured into little white moons, the fingers on this one looked longer and somehow inhuman. René blinked, his mouth going dry. Each nail has been pulled out, one by one.
The fingers had obviously long since healed but the nails had never grown back, leaving stretched skin rounding the end of each finger. The skin was redder in colour and perfectly smooth, as if his hand were facing palm upward. Zhu began slowly drumming them on the table while René’s eyes darted from one finger to the next.
‘I believe Anu’s interrogation has only just begun,’ he continued. ‘So I suggest you start talking. It’s your choice, of course, but if you’re quick, I might even be able to intervene and put an end to the whole thing. Otherwise, who knows how long it will last or what else they will think of to do with her once they have had their fun?’
René looked up from Zhu’s hand, his jaw clenched.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Just let her go and I’ll tell you everything.’
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